Is There Anything It Can’t Do?

Seen on a storefront window in Eureka CA.

The Writing Desk Drawer, A Tale of Woe

During the time I was working on the fancy veneerwork for the legs, the drawer had been sitting minding its own business at the other end of the bench.  Unfortunately and unbeknownst to me in those intervening weeks the finished drawer, complete with matching veneer and bead edge, decided to act like an elected official and go crooked on me.  When I picked up the drawer to put it back into the writing box I saw that it had racked and twisted almost 1/2″ from corner to corner and would only go into the runners part way.  I could have dealt with 1/16″ with a little bit of shaving and a little bit of shimming.  But this require pretty drastic intervention.

The problem was both vexing and perplexing.  I had specifically selected a piece of very old tulip poplar for the structure of the drawer, yet here it was, gone all potato-chip-ie on me.  At the very least I would have to trim the dovetails and hope I could get it all back together, flat.  The edge beading that trimmed the edges of the drawer face was completely sacrificial and I knocked that off with a mallet and chisel in short order.  An hour in a water-filled trough released the rear dovetails and the back slat of the drawer, but the front was a trickier issue.

My first and foremost consideration was NOT damaging the veneer on the front of the drawer as that was carefully matched to the surround on the desk.  If I screwed that up I would have to saw a whole new piece of veneer from the prized figured plank, and I had zero interest in that.  Since the veneer had been applied to the curved front of the drawer with hot hide glue all it took was immersing it in hot water and letting the glue line relax to remove the veneer and get to work solving the problem.  No problem, right?  We’ve all heard this was the Achilles Heel of hide glue, that it was not robust and prone to failure in high-moisture environments.  I placed the drawer face down in a plant trough and poured in the hot water.  I checked back in a few minutes and nothing had happened.  Well, the finish had bloomed but that was irrelevant.  The veneer was holding firm.

I did it again.

No change.

And again.

No change.

I left it in the water trough overnight and checked it again in the morning.

Still firm.

In aggravation I dried off the drawer front and removed all the shellac finish.  Using my tacking iron and spatulas I rubbed the heated iron (over a wet rag) on the face of the veneer and gently worked the spatulas underneath the veneer to separate the glue line.  It worked, but took over an hour of nerve-wracking time.

I set the veneer aside, undamaged but a little warped as you might expect.  But certainly salvageable.  I put the drawer front back into the water trough overnight and was able to disassemble the dovetails to see where I could trim the joinery to get it to fit snug and flat.

But for whatever reason this piece of clear, vintage wood had twisted and there was nothing I could do to un-do that.  I won’t describe the whole process of trying to re-use and re-fit the original components — I think I have exasperation induced amnesia on this chapter of the tale of woe — but in the end decided to build a whole new drawer front.  The drawer sides and back were just fine, but that bowed drawer front was, as my beloved Mom might say, a stinker.  (My mother is among the most gentle, even tempered people I have ever met, and I never heard an uncouth word cross her lips.  She once, however,  described a troublesome co-worker as, “A real stinker,” and I knew he must be The Spawn of Satan.)

So I fabricated new new drawer front from a different piece of lumber, also vintage tulip poplar, cut new half-blind pins, and reassembled the whole.  New edge beading, relaid the veneer, and newly finished.

It was perfect, and held true until the desk was finished and delivered.  Whew.

Scale

A recent vacation in northern California allowed us to experience the majestic scale of trees there in some amazing parks and forests.  Compared to Eastern climes everything seems bigger there.

It is often said that the inherent efficacy of a design is its success when scaled up or down.  If so, then redwoods and Douglas Firs are winners.  The sheer awesome scale of these plants are simply masterpieces.

The panorama of trees taller than skyscrapers is a magnificent thing to behold.

The decaying stumps of ancient trees 40, 50, and even 80 feet in girth simply boggles the mind for those of us from somewhere else on the planet.

When the trees are so tall that looking up at their crowns causes you to lose your balance, you know you are not in Kansas any more.

From a distant viewing vantage the trees seem much like any forest elsewhere, but when you add the contextual element of a human form the factor of scale is jarring and disorienting.

Even the drape of the bark is bizarre in its gigantazoidness.

Now if only the polity there would muster the wisdom and will to reduce the scale of the incentives that encourage the parasitic indolent self destruction (being there is like witnessing the devolution of Homo sapien sapien into Homo sapien slackerous right before your eyes.  Even in the forests we could not escape the racket of boom boxes and the stench of dope wafting from groups of  dissolute losers.)  The civilized folks of California deserve better.

Until then, at least they still have their trees.

Practicing Log Splitting and Building A Riving Brake

With the commencement of production for the video “Making A Gragg Chair” steaming down the rails I thought it would be good to get back in practice splitting logs I had culled from last year’s harvest up on the mountain.  As soon as the mud dried out I drove up there and started wailing away at one in particular.  As I already recounted the initial results were not heartening.  The last time I split some giant logs was a couple years ago and that went perfectly.  Had I forgotten how to split a log?

A second log went much better but I had left my camera in the barn so you’ll have to take my word for it.

I also had long desired to build a riving brake, a tool I had never before possessed.  Now was the time to spend part of an afternoon doing so.

When my brother and I rebuilt the lean-to on the lower log barn lat year I was left with a half-dozen ancient chestnut poles.  They seemed to be perfect candidates for the project.

Using precision woodworking processes I trimmed the ends of the logs to allow for whisper-fit angled joinery.

That joinery was accomplished with a low-speed high-torque drill and a length of 1/2″ threaded rod and nuts.  With some judicious use of leveraging I got the tripod up on its feet.

I added the cross bracing and it was ready to put to work.

I’ll see if it is as easy to use as Follansbee makes it look.

Matching Appearance

For the final session of the SAPFM Tidewater Chapter Spring Meeting I was asked to talk about “matching color” but I took the liberty of broadening the topic to “matching appearance” which I think is more useful.  Though my demonstration component did indeed focus on understanding the perception of color and its modification, it occurred within the larger context of “appearance.”  Normally this is a topic I like to spend a week covering, so in 90 minutes I barely got to the highlights.  In fact, at this fairly late date I have decided to add a full chapter on the topic to my Period Finisher’s Manual book for Lost Art Press.

There are many aspects of appearance of interest to woodfinishing and I addressed each and their interrelation briefly.  One point I made repeatedly is that if matching color is a critical component of any projects, that must be accomplished in the finishing layers (or between them), NOT in staining the wood.

Trying to match any color via the manipulation of wood stain on the bare wood surface is a fool’s errand.  To get to where you want to go, you must know where you are starting.  And that means the wood surface must be sized with enough coating to establish the base appearance and color.

There are times where the selection of the coating itself is a critical component of achieving a specified color.

Once you get to the point of manipulating the coloration, I believe that the traditional color wheel is inadequate to the task.  Instead I prefer a different conceptual model for color, and that model is known as the “L,a,b” color system.  I will not go into detail here as to how I use this system in my own color work, suffice to say it is functionally a subtractive system i.e., if something is too red, I add green, if it is too yellow I add blue, to neutralize the excess color.

Adding tonality to the surface appearance can be achieved through tinting the coating itself with dyes or pigments.  Here I am using some very intense organometallic synthetic dyes that were originally created for industrial and automotive paints, if I recall correctly.  These are  Orasol dyes and have a somewhat peculiar palette to select from, and are available to the finishing trade at Olde Mill.

The means of imparting coloration are many, and once again I only use color in or in-between the finish.  One of the simplest and most effective techniques — and historically accurate to boot — is a light glaze of asphaltum.

And speaking of glazing, I spoke for a few minutes about how to determine whether or not you have good glazing brushes.

Another glazing technique I demonstrated was using artists’ watercolor paints known as goauche with a waterborne shellac binder that I made right there in the meeting.  If you do not get the color or tonality correct, just wipe it off with a damp rag and start over again.  You have perhaps a half hour to do this before the waterborne shellac sets, and it is very tenacious once dry.

And then it was time for everyone to go home.

SAPFM Tidewater Chapter Spring Meeting

One of the delightful happenstances in my past was my intersection with the Society of American Period Furniture Makers.  Not only is its annual journal American Period Furniture a premier resource for furniture makers, the fellowship and learning among its members is a balm to the soul and a source of inspiration.  In addition to the national organization there are almost two dozen regional chapters, three of whom can count me as among their company.  Any member to the SAPFM can attend any chapter meeting.  Most chapters meet twice a year, I believe.  If you have any interest in the topics (and I have to assume you do if you read this blog) by all means join SAPFM.  It will be a blessing to you as it is to me.

A couple weekends ago I drove down to Virginia swamp country for the Spring meeting of the Tidewater Chapter, and the program was once again excellent.  There were three primary presenters for this meeting and amazing project updates from a couple more.

The morning started with Ben Hobbs discussion and demonstration of both vintage and contemporary manufactured hardware, everything from fasteners to hinges, handles, and locks.

Like many (most?) of us Ben is loathe to discard anything useful, and given the numbers of furniture pieces that have passed through his shop and under his hands he possesses a large quantity of vintage hardware.

Next came a couple of sessions with this year’s Cartouche Award winner Ray Journigan, focusing on creating and replicating carvings.

He walked us through the entire process, from making the drawings/tracings, through a thin wood pattern, and then the sculpting itself.  It might be a small thing, but I was thrilled to see him model the forms in sculpting clay in advance of addressing the wood, to inform his eyes and hands as to the progression of the carving.

He then walked us through a demonstration of making rubber molds and resin castings of his carvings.  As an old molding-and-casting guy myself I was fascinated.

The final presenter before me was Steve Dietrich a furniture maker in Fredricksburg, Virginia, with an update on the project to recreate George Washington’s boyhood home.  The domicile is being built from scratch based on the archaeological findings on the site, and Steve is one of the folks replicating the furnishings, including several bed frames and a blanket chest.  I believe he is making a half dozen or so pieces.  He rightly describes the project (as a whole) as the undertaking to create a national treasure.  And he is right.

The I took the stage.  Stay tuned.

Nicholson Prototype Construction II

With the young colt up on its not-at-all-wobbly feet I turned my attentions to completing the under-structure for the bench.  This included three main elements, namely the backing board for the front apron (I knew that this bench was destined to be used against a wall and so would not need for both front and rear aprons to be used in work holding), the top batten nailer on the rear apron, and the top battens themselves.

While some folks are perfectly content with a single-thickness apron and top, I choose instead to make sure that these are double thick, or at least there are regions of double thickness, to better suffice for grabbing holdfasts which serve as the primary workholding tool on the bench.  Thus the double-thick front apron and the battens-plus-planks for the top give me plenty of opportunity to locate and use holdfasts.

I ripped the front apron backer on the table saw such that the 2×12 became a 2×10 and a 2×1-1/2.  I screwed these in place so that the top battens that rested on them were 1/8″ shy of the top of the front and rear aprons.  This was so that I could plane off the top edges of the full aprons to remove the rounded mill-edge that they came with from the original manufacturing.  I placed the battens roughly equidistant, beginning with the tops of the legs and interspersed in between.

Here you can see the front apron has been planed even with the top surface of the battens.

This portion of the project took a little more than an hour, so I was just barely past the three-hour mark on the project.

Up next – affixing the top planks and drilling the holdfast holes.  Stay tuned.

Nicholson Prototype Construction I

The general approach to constructing a Nicholson Bench, an essentially “stick built” structure, is to assemble the legs into two end units and attach the aprons and top to them.  This time I tried something a little different just to see how it worked.  I assembled the legs to the aprons first, then added the end aprons to tie the four legs together.  I found the approach neither more or less beneficial than the other.

As with any other project the first task is to start with a pile of lumber and make bigger pieces into smaller pieces.  It was first thing in the morning so I was not up to full steam, and it took me about 45 minutes to get done.  I chopped them to length with my circular saw and a framing square, and ripped the narrower pieces with the table saw.  I ripped the boards in half, then ripped the factory edge to make sure everything was not only the same width but had a clean, sharp edge.

This project gave me the perfect opportunity to pull out my “butterfly sawhorse” as my assembly platform.  I laid out the legs on the inner side of the aprons so that they were located such that the cross batten for the top (its location was determined by the top of the leg itself, the center picture is a close-up of the arrangement) was going to fall approx. 1/8″ below the rounded factory edge of the 2×12 apron, so that I could easily plane that edge square once the unit was up on its feet.

I used a drill driver for the decking screws that hold the unit together (the ultimate location for the bench did not mandate the use of period fastners) and with the front and back sections completed I was able to affix the end aprons for a complete outer frame of the bench in about 30 minutes.  So, it went up on its feet for the first of several “up/downs” that were planned for the construction.

If you are counting, that means I went from pile of lumber to up on its feet in about an hour and fifteen minutes.

Up next  – the front apron backer, rear nailer strip, and the cross battens for the top.

A Barn Adornment

Recently I was contacted by Mike Podmaniczky, who I’ve know for more than three decades and who served un-knowingly as the prototype student when we designed the Furniture Conservation Training Program at the SI (Mike was in the first class of that graduated in 1990, I think) and went on to be a Furniture Conservator at Winterthur for many years.  Mike and I shared many interests, not the least of which was the chairmaking of Samuel Gragg.

Fifteen years ago he curated a pretty darned wonderful exhibit on Gragg chairs and their making, and now as he is cleaning out the closets he asked me if I wanted one of the signs from the exhibit.  My answer was of course, “Yes!”

It arrived recently and will be ensconced in the attic video studio alongside my Narayan Nayar portrait of the Studley Ensemble.

Feral Woodworking, a/k/a “Firewood Season”

As we settle into the routine of life on the homestead it becomes ever more clear that it is always “firewood season.”  We made it through the winter with a large amount left in the re-filled crib, having gone through the complete supply in the side crib and the front porch, refilling the former two months ago in case it was needed.  It was not.

But still there are at least a half dozen large trees on the ground up in the woods, trees we felled last summer and simply awaiting my further ministrations.  Now on nice days, and by that I mean “dry” days with good enough traction to get the truck up the mountain, I section and split a ton or two of firewood.  I discovered a useful implement for the task, a ramp.  I found that rolling the bolts of wood into the truck was dramatically preferable to hoisting them.

D’oh.

I enjoy reflecting on the fact that my goal of having two years’ worth of firewood ready to go at the beginning of winter might be fulfilled by autumn of this year.  Plus, I am noting that late winter is the time to forage for firewood as the naturally fallen trees are so readily visible, as are ailing trees to be harvested this summer.  I look forward to growing the pile to the size of a truck in the coming days.

Now, it only I could persuade Mrs. Barn of the need for a John Deere Gator or something similar.  For the firewood.  For the children.